


Twa Corbies - what canna be changed must be tholed

by travellinghopefully



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Poetry, Rape, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:46:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4334393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travellinghopefully/pseuds/travellinghopefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TO BE EDITED LATER<br/>(bit surprised/carried away by the amount of background research I am doing on this)</p><p>Malcolm Tucker is in prison, he is raped, bringing back savage memories of childhood abuse  - wow, that sounds depressing<br/>mainly about poetry and romance - honest<br/>transformative power of prison education and poetry and how not to be Jeffrey Archer<br/>may be a siege and a lot of covert/illicit almost smut<br/>(if I don't make a summary note now, this is never happening)</p><p>and determined somewhere to make Ollie suffer</p><p>can't believe I am currently in one accord with Michael Gove and his scrapping of restrictions on prison books (feel this is a sign of impending apocalypse)</p><p>(background, first confession, first communion, roles of WPCs in 60s, current prison conditions, education, educators, books, libraries, poetry, academic articles, John Donne, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Carol Ann Duffy (and others)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> also inspired by, Babylon 5 Series 3 episode (off topic, G'Kar is definitely top 10 fave fictional character) - "And the rock cried out, no hiding place" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zly_tL5mMc8
> 
> There's no hidin' place down here  
> You know, there's no hidin' place down here  
> I went to the rock to hide my face  
> But the rock cried out, no, no hiding place down here
> 
> I wanna tell you that there's no hiding place down here  
> Don't you know there's no hiding place down here?  
> Yeah, I went to the rock to hide my face  
> But the rock cried out, no, no hiding place down here
> 
> And when the sinners gonna be runnin'  
> At the knowledge of their fate  
> They're gonna run to the rocks and the mountains  
> But their prayers will be too late
> 
> You know, they never thought about Jesus  
> Not knowing the end was now here  
> But they'll be runnin' tryin' to find a hidin' place  
> When it comes their time to die
> 
> I said now, no hidin' place  
> When the water start boilin', no hidin' place  
> World catch on fire, no hidin' place  
> Down here, no hidin' place  
> Yeah, I went to the rock to hide my face  
> But the rock cried out no, no, no, no hidin' place down here
> 
> Don't you know when the world catch on fire  
> There'll be no hidin' place?  
> The water start boilin' there'll be no hidin' place  
> Oh, when the thunder start rollin', there'll be no hidin' place  
> Sinners start runnin' there'll be no hidin' place
> 
> Can't you see the gambler runnin' sayin', "Lord, save my soul!"  
> And the liar runnin', sayin' "Jesus, save my soul!"  
> You know, there's no hidin' place down here  
> There's no hidin' place down here  
> Yeah, I went to the rock to hide my face  
> He cried out, no, no, no, no hidin' place down here
> 
> and 1Peter 1:24 For, "all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fail.
> 
> and Matthew 6:30 ...the grass of the field, which is here today and and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace

The Twa Corbies

 

As I was walking all alane,  
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;  
The tane unto the ither say,  
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"  
"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,  
I wot there lies a new slain knight;  
And nane do ken that he lies there,  
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."  
"His hound is tae the huntin gane,  
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,  
His lady's tain anither mate,  
So we may mak oor dinner swate."  
"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,  
And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;  
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair  
We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."  
"Mony a one for him makes mane,  
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;  
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,  
The wind sall blaw for evermair."

THIS IS A LIVE DRAFT 

He was 9 when his uncle raped him, just after his first communion, his rosary crushed into his hand in his pocket.

He was a pathetic, weedy, pasty little kid, his uncle held him down by his neck and took away joy and innocence and a lot of his future. His first confession had been about not sharing his sweeties with his sister, he was never speaking to a priest again. 

His uncle kept raping him til he was 14 and still whip thin, but wiry and strong enough to beat his uncle to a pulp.

And, yes, that haunted him and made him sick, dripping with cold sweat, his sheets suffocating him and he woke screaming from too little sleep, but that wasn't what made it so bad, the bad thing was this. 

When he scrabbled away from his uncle, throwing up in the street, tears and snot running down his face, he'd gone to the police. A WPC had taken him into a quiet room, got him milk and chocolate biscuits (he couldn't eat or drink). She had listened, she had written everything down, she had been equally sympathetic and incensed, she had somehow made Malcolm feel better. He was given the chance to wash his face, and she gave him her fine lace handkerchief. 

Then, he'd gone home. He'd stood in the kitchen and told his ma and father (his younger sister out in the close, playing rope). His father had taken off his belt and beaten him, beaten his so the scars of the buckle still marked him, beaten him so badly that he was sent of to an "auntie", ostensibly to recover, but more because of the cardinal sin he had committed. No matter how bad things ever were, you never, ever talked to the police. 

The WPC came to the home, she was told it must have been " a wee scamp, having her on" - no, they had no son, "we have a beautiful bonnie wee girl - Shona."

Malcolm's uncle disappeared for a bit, and then he was back and him and Shona were still sent round there. The one thing that Malcolm held onto, was that he'd made sure Shona was never touched, never knew what happened.

Malcolm burned with shame, and if he'd been older with outrage, but as he was 9, it was "just not fair". He felt his parents despised him, he wasn't a rough and tough lad out playing endless football, and getting into fights - he liked his books and school and loved to draw. His parents lavished their attention on his sister, it was as if he no longer existed.

As his face was smashed into the tiles of the prison shower he felt trapped in his 9 year old self. All he had learned, achieved, accomplished became as the grass of the field, here today and tomorrow thrown in the furnace.


	2. Memento mori

Special Purpose Leave  
All prisoners, aside from those in the short list of excluded groups, are eligible for temporary release on a Special Purpose Licence. An SPL is usually only granted in response to a specific set of circumstances. Some common grounds are:  
• Compassionate (visits to dying relatives, funerals, emergency problems with children for whom the prisoner has parental responsibility or vulnerable persons for whom the prisoner is sole carer)  
• Medical treatment, whether as an in-patient or out-patient  
• Marriage  
• Helping the police with their enquires  
Applications should be considered as a matter of urgency in cases where religious requirements mean a funeral will take place within 24 hours of death. However risk assessment must have taken place and is difficult to accelerate.  
The maximum period of release under an SPL is four nights. The length and frequency of ROTL is at the Governor’s discretion. In exceptional circumstances a Governor has the discretion to grant back to back licences.

 

A scarecrow in an immaculate black wool coat, a soft grey scarf wrapped round his throat, close cropped hair, grey skin almost matching, his cheeks so sunken it wasn’t hard to imagine the grinning skull beneath the skin.

Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur,  
Mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur,  
Omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur.  
Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus.

Life is short, and shortly it will end;  
Death comes quickly and respects no one,  
Death destroys everything and takes pity on no one.  
To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning.

Ni conversus fueris et sicut puer factus  
Et vitam mutaveris in meliores actus,  
Intrare non poteris regnum Dei beatus.  
Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus.

If you do not turn back and become like a child,  
And change your life for the better,  
You will not be able to enter, blessed, the Kingdom of God.  
To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning.


	3. Dignity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> notes and relevant quotes from The Thick of It

I'm not fucking talking to anyone. I'm not talking to a quack, a warder, a shrink. I'm not fucking talking.

 

Everything he'd ever said, everything they'd ever said, it all came back to mock him, to haunt him. No fucking dignity

"You know Jackie fucking Chan about me. You know fuck all about me! I am totally beyond the realms of your fuckin' tousle-haired fuckin' dim-witted compre-fucking-hension. I don't just take this fucking job home, you know! I take this job home, it fucking ties me to the bed, and it fuckin' fucks me from arsehole to breakfast! Then it wakes me up in the morning with a cup full of piss slammed in my face, slaps me about the chops to make sure I'm awake enough so it can kick me in the fucking bollocks! This job has taken me in every hole in my fucking body. "Malcolm!", it's gone, you can't know Malcolm because Malcolm is not here! Malcolm fucking left the building fucking years ago! This is a fucking husk, I am a fucking host for this fucking job. Do you want this job? Yes? You do fucking want this job? Then you're gonna have to swallow this whole fucking life and let it grow inside you like a parasite, getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it fucking eats your insides alive and it stares out of your eyes and tells you what to do."

I'm gonna leave the stage with my head held fucking high. What you're gonna see is a master class in fucking dignity, son. The audience will be on their feet. "There he goes!", they'll say. No friends - no "real" friends. No children, no glory, no memoirs. Well fuck them.

"Do you ever get lonely?"  
"No."

Utter fucking bullshit

He curled into a ball, sobbing on the floor, pressed as far into the corner as he could get. No fucking dignity. He took the sliver of sharp metal concealed against the inner edge of the bunk and began to systematically cut himself.

He could hear what the woman was saying. He could feel the scabs itching under the dressings. He could feel the bones shift and crackle in his cheek and he didn't give a fuck. Oh yeah, talk to me about my diet. Why would you choose to eat anything that at best had only been spat on?

"How do you feel Malcolm? I really feel we could make significant progress if you would just engage."

...."Are you fucking reading this off a cereal packet?"

NOTES ON SELF INJURY

...women self injure in larger numbers because their gender role socialization inclines them towards it.  
When women get upset, they are taught to turn their feelings inward and take it out on themselves

...women are also socialized to lodge their self-identity heavily within their own bodies , since so much of their value and self worth in the relationship marketplace resides in their looks

...for people who "fail" to live up to the standards of fashion models, this may create anxiety, depression and feelings of failure

...this excessive focus on embodiment leads women to think that they can control their bodies, they can control their selves. Injuring their bodies gives them a feeling of control over their emotions. This is the same sociological impulse that leads so many of them to engage in eating disorders.

Self harm or suicide in prisons

the prisoner may be unusually quiet, uninterested in things or have withdrawn into themselves

they may have withdrawn into themselves

they may have a disregard for their appearance and personal hygiene

they might display different emotions for example anger, despair or hopelessness

they might feel isolated and lonely

they might be showing difficulty in adjusting to their situation

they might express the wish to die

 

Self harm and suicide are common in prisoners....understanding how frequently self-harm is followed by suicide and in which prisoners it is most likely to happen is important.

139195 self harm incidents were recorded in 26510 individual prisoners between 2004 and 2009 (in prisons in England and Wales). 5-6% of male prisoners and 20-24% of female inmates.

In both sexes self harm was associated with younger age, white ethnic origin

the risk of suicide was higher in those who self harmed than in general prison population, and more than half the deaths occurred within a month of self harm

risk factors for suicide after self harm in male prisoners were older age and previous self harm incident of high or moderate lethality

From Prison UK: An Insider's View  
Because of scarce frontline staff resources and current overcrowding, the ‘app’ (application) system is often the first area where things simply cease to function, or else go so slowly that nothing ever appears to be happening.

Cutting up, however, cannot be ignored because it involves filing reports and the likelihood that the person injuring themselves will need to be placed on the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) system which is used to monitor prisoners deemed to be a risk to themselves. Put crudely, self-harm is used to get the attention of staff, particularly senior officers on the wings. It is a symptom of the extreme stresses within what is now becoming a highly dysfunctional type of crisis management.

In itself, this is nothing new as any cons or screw will confirm. Every prison has a problem with self-harming because some prisoners rely on hurting themselves as a method of managing stress. Others become addicted to the practice whilst in custody, although a fair number of people who end up inside actually started self-harming in some form or other prior to coming into custody – often in childhood or youth as a response to abuse or other trauma.

 

As the lyrics of the haunting song Hurt by Nine Inch Nails put it so eloquently: 

“I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel, I focus on the pain, The only thing that’s real.”

Self-harm can sometimes be seen as a means of exerting control over practically the only thing a person has left: their own bodies. For these reasons, there will probably always be some degree of self-harm going on in our prisons, even without the current crisis.


	4. some poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stowing some poems for later use

Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy

 

It was late September. I'd just poured a glass of wine, begun  
to unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchen  
filled with the smell of itself, relaxed, its steamy breath  
gently blanching the windows. So I opened one,  
then with my fingers wiped the other's glass like a brow.  
He was standing under the pear tree snapping a twig.

Now the garden was long and the visibility poor, the way  
the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky,  
but that twig in his hand was gold. And then he plucked  
a pear from a branch - we grew Fondante d'Automne -  
and it sat in his palm like a light bulb. On.  
I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?

He came into the house. The doorknobs gleamed.  
He drew the blinds. You know the mind; I thought of  
the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Miss Macready.  
He sat in that chair like a king on a burnished throne.  
The look on his face was strange, wild, vain. I said,  
What in the name of God is going on? He started to laugh.

I served up the meal. For starters, corn on the cob.  
Within seconds he was spitting out the teeth of the rich.  
He toyed with his spoon, then mine, then with the knives, the forks.  
He asked where was the wine. I poured with shaking hand,  
a fragrent, bone-dry white from Italy, then watched  
as he picked up the glass, goblet, golden chalice, drank.

It was then that I started to scream. He sank to his knees.  
After we had both calmed down, I finished the wine  
on my own, hearing him out. I made him sit  
on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself.  
I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone.  
The toilet I didn't mind. I couldn't believe my ears:

how he'd had a wish. Look, we all have wishes; granted.  
But who has wishes granted? Him. Do you know about gold?  
It feeds no one; aurum, soft, untarnishable; slakes  
no thirst. He tried to light a cigarette; I gazed, entranced,  
as the blue flame played on its luteous stem. At least,  
I said, you'll be able to give up smoking for good.

Separate beds. In fact, I put a chair against my door,  
near petrified. He was below, turning the spare room  
into the tomb of Tutankhamun. You see, we were passionate then,  
in those halcyon days; unwrapping each other, rapidly,  
like presents, fast food. But now I feared his honeyed embrace,  
the kiss that would turn my lips to a work of art.

And who, when it comes to the crunch, can live  
with a heart of gold? That night, I dreamt I bore  
his child, its perfect ore limbs, its little tongue  
like a precious latch, its amber eyes  
holding their pupils like flies. My dream-milk  
burned in my breasts. I woke to the streaming sun.

So he had to move out. We'd a caravan  
in the wilds, in a glade of its own. I drove him up  
under cover of dark. He sat in the back.  
And then I came home, the women who married the fool  
who wished for gold. At first I visited, odd times,  
parking the car a good way off, then walking.

You knew you were getting close. Golden trout  
on the grass. One day, a hare hung from a larch,  
a beautiful lemon mistake. And then his footprints,  
glistening next to the river's path. He was thin,  
delirious; hearing, he said, the music of Pan  
from the woods. Listen. That was the last straw.

What gets me now is not the idiocy or greed  
but lack of thought for me. Pure selfishness. I sold  
the contents of the house and came down here.  
I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon,  
and once a bowl of apples stopped me dead. I miss most,  
even now, his hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch.

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud  
BY JOHN DONNE  
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee  
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;  
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow  
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.  
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,  
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,  
And soonest our best men with thee do go,  
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.  
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,  
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,  
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well  
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?  
One short sleep past, we wake eternally  
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Maya Angelou - Touched by an angel

We, unaccustomed to courage  
exiles from delight  
live coiled in shells of loneliness  
until love leaves its high holy temple  
and comes into our sight  
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives  
and in its train come ecstasies  
old memories of pleasure  
ancient histories of pain.  
Yet if we are bold,  
love strikes away the chains of fear  
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity  
In the flush of love's light  
we dare be brave  
And suddenly we see  
that love costs all we are  
and will ever be.  
Yet it is only love  
which sets us free.

ELEGY XIX.

by John Donne

 

WHOEVER loves, if he do not propose  
The right true end of love, he's one that goes  
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.  
Love is a bear-whelp born : if we o'er-lick  
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,  
We err, and of a lump a monster make.  
Were not a calf a monster, that were grown  
Faced like a man, though better than his own ?  
Perfection is in unity ; prefer  
One woman first, and then one thing in her.  
I, when I value gold, may think upon  
The ductileness, the application,  
The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,  
From rust, from soil, from fire ever free ;  
But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis made  
By our new nature, use, the soul of trade.  
All this in women we might think upon,  
—If women had them—and yet love but one.  
Can men more injure women than to say  
They love them for that, by which they're not they ?  
Makes virtue woman ? must I cool my blood  
Till I both be, and find one wise and good ?  
May barren angels love so. But if we  
Make love to woman, virtue is not she,  
As beauty is not, nor wealth. He that strays thus  
From her to hers is more adulterous  
Than if he took her maid. Search every sphere  
And firmament, our Cupid is not there.  
He's an infernal God, and underground  
With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound.  
Men to such gods their sacrificing coals  
Did not on altars lay, but pits and holes.  
Although we see celestial bodies move  
Above the earth, the earth we till and love.  
So we her airs contemplate, words and heart,  
And virtues, but we love the centric part.  
Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit  
For love, than this, as infinite as it.  
But in attaining this desired place  
How much they err, that set out at the face ?  
The hair a forest is of ambushes,  
Of springes, snares, fetters, and manacles ;  
The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,  
And when 'tis wrinkled, shipwrecks us again ;  
Smooth, 'tis a paradise, where we would have  
Immortal stay, but wrinkled 'tis a grave.  
The nose, like to the first meridian, runs  
Not 'twixt an east and west, but 'twixt two suns ;  
It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,  
On either side, and then directs us where  
Upon the islands fortunate we fall,  
Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial,  
Her swelling lips, to which when we are come,  
We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,  
For they seem all ; there Sirens' songs and there  
Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear.  
There, in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,  
The remora, her cleaving tongue, doth dwell.  
These and the glorious promontory, her chin,  
O'erpast, and the straight Hellespont between  
The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,  
Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests,  
Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye  
Some island moles may scattered there descry ;  
And sailing towards her India, in that way  
Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay.  
Though there the current be the pilot made,  
Yet, ere thou be where thou shouldst be embay'd,  
Thou shalt upon another forest set,  
Where many shipwreck, and no further get.  
When thou art there, consider what this chase  
Misspent by thy beginning at the face.  
Rather set out below ; practise thy art ;  
Some symmetry the foot hath with that part  
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,  
Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at.  
Least subject to disguise and change it is ;   
Men say the devil never can change his ;  
It is the emblem that hath figured  
Firmness ; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.  
Civility we see refined ; the kiss,  
Which at the face began, transplanted is,  
Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee,  
Now at the papal foot delights to be.  
If kings think that the nearer way, and do  
Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too ;  
For, as free spheres move faster far than can  
Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man  
Which goes this empty and ethereal way,  
Than if at beauty's elements he stay.  
Rich Nature in women wisely made  
Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid.  
They then which to the lower tribute owe,  
That way which that exchequer looks must go ;  
He which doth not, his error is as great,  
As who by clyster gives the stomach meat.

Lethe - Charles Baudelaire

Come, lie upon my breast, cruel, insensitive soul,  
Adored tigress, monster with the indolent air;  
I want to plunge trembling fingers for a long time  
In the thickness of your heavy mane,  
To bury my head, full of pain   
In your skirts redolent of your perfume,   
To inhale, as from a withered flower,   
The moldy sweetness of my defunct love.  
I wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live!   
In a slumber doubtful as death,   
I shall remorselessly cover with my kisses   
Your lovely body polished like copper.  
To bury my subdued sobbing   
Nothing equals the abyss of your bed,   
Potent oblivion dwells upon your lips   
And Lethe flows in your kisses.  
My fate, hereafter my delight,   
I'll obey like one predestined;   
Docile martyr, innocent man condemned,   
Whose fervor aggravates the punishment.  
I shall suck, to drown my rancor,   
Nepenthe and the good hemlock   
From the charming tips of those pointed breasts   
That have never guarded a heart.

 

may i feel said he

by e e cummings

may i feel said he  
(i'll squeal said she  
just once said he)  
it's fun said she  
(may i touch said he  
how much said she  
a lot said he)  
why not said she  
(let's go said he  
not too far said she  
what's too far said he  
where you are said she)  
may i stay said he  
(which way said she  
like this said he  
if you kiss said she  
may i move said he  
is it love said she)  
if you're willing said he  
(but you're killing said she  
but it's life said he  
but your wife said she  
now said he)  
ow said she  
(tiptop said he  
don't stop said she  
oh no said he)  
go slow said she  
(cccome?said he  
ummm said she)  
you're divine!said he  
(you are Mine said she


End file.
